Abstract
The aim of this study is to assess the contribution of and phonological awareness and naming speed abilities to reading in the Arabic language. For this purpose, 117 third and fifth grade Arabic-speaking children with intact verbal abilities were given measures of phonological awareness and naming speed, as well as reading measures of vowelized and unvowelized texts. The results revealed a modest correlation between phonological awareness and naming speed (NS) measures. Also, as predicted, a significant relationship was found between phonological awareness measures and reading accuracy; and between naming speed measures and fluency. Following, Hierarchal regression analyses revealed that, phonological awareness measures contributed significantly to variance in reading accuracy, and naming speed measures contributed a unique variance in reading fluency. Further analysis revealed that naming speed measures explain more variance in fluency and explained more variance in third grade than in fifth grade while phonological awareness measures explained more variance in fifth grade than in third grade. These results reveal that both abilities are key components in reading acquisition in Arabic, and that their relative contribution to reading not only depends on the orthographic transparency, but to other features as well.
Highlights
Recent studies led the authors to suggest that much is unknown about the processes underlying efficient extraction of meaning from reading
Phonological awareness and naming speed (NS) are two abilities found to have a strong relationship with reading in many languages [e.g. 28]
It is clear that the roles of different aspects of reading vary in their importance and contribution to reading development based on the characteristics of specific languages [29]
Summary
Recent studies led the authors to suggest that much is unknown about the processes underlying efficient extraction of meaning from reading The first goal of this study is to examine how independent is naming speed ability from phonological awareness ability in the context of text reading level This issue is of great importance because adopting one or the other view dictates many aspects of the diagnosis and treatment in a Arabic, language that has not been investigated before in this context. If current practice places naming speed problems as part of phonological deficit, no direct assessment or intervention will be aimed for this cognitive ability, if, phonological and naming speed processes represent two independent sources of breakdown, there are critical implications for diagnosis, sub-typing efforts, and most importantly intervention [2] This investigation in Arabic language is of great importance for diagnosis, sub-typing efforts, and, most importantly, intervention with reading difficulties [2]
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